Page 5 of A Doctor's Promise
As her step faltered, and she began to slow and turn, a moment of panic shook him with a shiver
What am I going to say? Why did I shout? Finn, let her go.
He felt the spray of the waves patter across his cheeks, cooling them from their growing heat. Edie had stopped a few yards from where he was standing with Archie, who was now lying on the wet sand himself, his head balanced on his front paws, watching, waiting to see how this would pan out. Finn could practically hear the cogs turning in Edie’s head, as though she was struggling with the encounter as much as he was. This didn’t surprise him, he knew he wasn’t the most approachable person ever, that was deliberate. Most people struggled with encounters with him.
Finn chewed the inside of his cheek, feeling with his tongue the rough line of skin etched there from years of the habit. She wasn’t making a move back towards him, but she hadn’t carried on running in the other direction yet. The more they stood staring at each other from a distance, the more Finn wanted to reach out and gather her up into his arms. The feeling left him breathlessly dizzy and hopelessly confused all in one mixed up jumble.
“What?” Edie’s shout broke the spell as her voice carried over the crashing waves.
She raised her hands as if to coax the words out of him. Finn clicked his tongue at Archie and the two of them walked towards Edie who was standing so still, Finn wondered if she was being deliberately stubborn. It didn’t bother him. In fact, he quite liked her strong will. That had certainly shown itself during their first encounter in the hospital.
As he neared her, he could see her shivering slightly, despite the warm summer evening. But she was, after all, dressed in shorts and a vest that were soaked through.
“I noticed how uncomfortable you looked and how far away Little Water is,” he stuttered, marvelling again at the power this woman had over him.
“Right, thanks,” she replied, though her thanks sounded anything but sincere. “So you thought you’d stop me to tell me this and make my run back home take even longer?”
She raised an eyebrow at him, and Finn felt his stomach flip over.
What am I doing?
“No,” he uttered quietly. “I wondered if you’d like to come back to mine and I could drive you back home? Seeing as how this is all Archie’s fault.”
Finn!
“Oh,” Edie looked taken aback. “Right. Sorry I just thought, you know, well, um… You weren’t exactly very nice to me last time we met. I just thought you would be the same out of work.”
Finn gave a nervous laugh as Edie’s eyes darted to the sand.
“Yeah,” he gave by way of explanation. “So can I make it up to you a bit now?”
Being kind to Edie was coming as second nature to Finn. And being kind was, in turn, making Finn feel positive about himself. Nothing seemed impossible right at that moment.
“Okay,” she said, smiling and nodding her head. “Thank you. My legs do feel as though they’ve been through a shredder.”
She laughed. Finn watched her eyes crease and couldn’t help but laugh along-side her. The radiance of her peels lifting his spirits higher. Then he thought about the consequences of having someone in his life again and his spirits fell down and crashed around his ankles like the ever-encroaching waves.
“We’d better get a move on though,” she said, nodding her head towards the water. “Or the sea will take all three of us.”
Archie whined and tugged at his leash. Finn relinquished and unclipped it, and Archie went running off up the sand to where the dunes began.
“Sorry, Archie,” Edie shouted after him. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Her laughter bubbled out of her as a large wave came crashing around their feet and soaked his trainers. He watched as she skipped away from the edge of the water and the errant wave, creasing in half at the sight of his soaked feet. She was so refreshing. So open and carefree.
It’ll be okay,he thought as the wave retraced its path and sucked the sand out from under him.
He pulled a sopping wet trainer out of the sand with a satisfying squelchy noise, careful not to lose it from his foot, and stretched over to the driest sand he could reach. Edie looked at him and drew her top lip into her mouth to quell more laughter. Finn wondered to himself how delicious it would be to draw her full lip into his own mouth then felt his face heat in reply.
What is happening to me?
His trainers slopped under his feet as he made his way out of the wave-sunken sand to the side of Edie. Archie was long gone, searching out an unknown prey in the dunes. Finn whistled between his fingers to get him back, the last thing he needed now was the crazy pooch running off and bothering some other poor soul. Though in the five years he’d had the rescue dog, Edie was the only person other than Finn himself he’d not shied away from.
Finn sighed, even his dog was colluding against him. He looked up from his thoughts right into Edie’s eyes and not for the first time that day his breath was whisked from his lungs. Maybe his dog wasn’t colluding so much as lending him a hand, or paw. Finn felt his face lift into a smile and held out his elbow.
“Shall we?” he said, grimacing as his feet made small raspberry noises in his wet trainers.
“Let’s,” Edie agreed, as she threaded her arm through his and they walked awkwardly up the sand towards the dunes and a patiently waiting Archie.
